


Roadshow

by alesia



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, WIP Amnesty, Watcher Politics (Highlander)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-07-25
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-01-16 12:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18521656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesia/pseuds/alesia
Summary: Amy Thomas's life just got a lot more complicated...





	1. Opening Salvo

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on hlfiction.net from 2007 through 2009.

The first time Amy Thomas met Death he saved her life. There were four of them in that warehouse, her psychotic assignment and the man who was her father and Death and herself, and Walker (the psychotic one, not that Death was much better on a bad day, not that she knew that *then*, mind you) had her by the arm and a gun to her head. Walker threatened, and her father (who wasn't quite her father) threatened, and Death just stood there and smiled, and then she broke free and ran -

\- and the gun went off -

\- and she was lying on the floor, blood coming out of her shoulder and her father (who wasn't quite) there pressing the blood in and cussing and praying -

\- and Death dancing with Walker, an efficient fight, a speedy execution -

\- and the lightning roaring down like rain as she stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling and tried not to pass out.

It was all very disorienting.

And then Death was there, biting instructions at her father (who wasn't quite) and pulling the bullet out as efficiently as he'd chopped off Walker's head, those long fingers sewing up the wound as though he'd done it a thousand times before. Between the bit of booze Death slipped her and the blood loss, she lost her battle with unconsciousness, but still there was no question that Death (and her father, who wasn't quite) had come to her rescue that night.

She let Joe proofread her final report on Walker, and said nothing when he deleted the name 'Benjamin Adams' and typed in the victor as 'unknown Immortal'.


	2. Stuck In Research

The second time Amy Thomas met Death it was at her father's bar, in the early hours just after lunch when no one was around. By this time she'd come to grips with the fact that yes, Joe was her biological father, but at the same time the man who'd raised her was also her father, even if he was dead and his blood wasn't hers. Not every woman has two fathers, and she hadn't wanted another one because the first was quite enough, but she had Joe now and it was really very selfish to reject him out of turn like that. In the end Amy didn't like how she felt about being selfish, so she chose not to be. Joe was happy about this decision of hers, of course, and Amy was starting to be happy about it, and things were starting to look up. Sort of. Except for one little detail that wasn't very little at all.

"They've shut me up in Research," she pouted, "and all because of Walker."

"It'll be safer," Joe said encouragingly. "Think of it as a vacation."

"It'll be boring! I've wanted a field position for so long and just because my first assignment was a psychotic slaving bastard, the men in Fieldwork think the 'little lady' is a useless gimp fit only for turning pages."

"I always enjoyed Research," Death spoke from behind her. "We had the best parties, and far fewer obituaries than Fieldwork."

"Until Kalas," Joe said bitterly as Amy half-turned to face the newcomer.

"I'm afraid I didn't quite catch your name the first time we met," she told Death, and extended her hand. "Amy Thomas."

Death took her hand and shook it twice, firmly, then sat down on the stool next to her at the bar. "At the moment I'm Adam Pierson, though I'm afraid our poor chap's near the end of his shelf life."

Joe snorted. "Hasn't stopped you yet, Adam."

"You were in Research?" Amy asked, half-accusatory, half-wondering.

"D'you have any beer, Joe?" Adam asked plaintively, and then turned to look her in the eye. "Yes, for ten years as a matter of fact, and if Duncan bloody MacLeod of the Clan Macleod hadn't showed up, I'd be there still."

"Story of my life, buddy," Joe sighed, and shrugged his shoulder as though it pained him as he turned to the taps.

"But - why?" The thought of an Immortal in the Watchers was foreign, and more than slightly frightening, much like the glint she had seen in Adam's eyes that night with Walker. "To hunt?"

"God forbid!" Adam splurted out his first mouthful of beer and took to patting down the wet splotches on his sweater with a spare napkin. "I've taken three heads in the last two hundred years, and none of those because I wanted to. I've no interest in the Game beyond staying  _out_  of it."

"Isn't that what you  _do_ , though, Immortals I mean?" Amy wrung her fingers together. It made no  _sense_  - an Immortal who rejected the Game? Who hid in the Watchers and stayed away from other Immortals?

"Why would I hunt heads? I like  _living_ , Amy, and generally speaking, chasing after skilled swordsmen and women who want to decapitate me isn't much of a recipe for keeping my head on my shoulders where it belongs. The Watchers, on the other hand, offer a safe place to hide from other Immortals, complete with plenty of books, beer, and indoor plumbing. Seems like an obvious choice from where I sit."

That made an astonishing amount of sense to Amy. It seemed a pity that more Immortals weren't as sensible as this one. "And the Prize?"

Adam stared into his beer. "There is no Prize."

"You mean you don't believe there's a Prize," she pushed.

Adam turned his full focus to her for one unnerving moment. "No, I mean there  _is_  no Prize. It's a bloody poor excuse to keep us fighting each other, that's all."

Meanwhile Joe scribbled in the background.

"You're in Research now," Adam told her between sips of his beer. "Look it up for yourself. When do the Chronicles first mention the Game? You've got four thousand years of data, Amy. Use it."

"I don't know if I'll be able to," she mentioned hesitantly, just beginning to warm up to this Immortal who had been a Watcher. "I've been assigned to the Methos Chronicles."

Adam promptly lost the beer in his mouth again.

"Adam, buddy, if you can't manage a beer at this time of the afternoon, maybe you shouldn't be drinking one," Joe lectured with a cagey grin.

"What's so funny?"

"That was my project too," Adam admitted. "Under Don Salzer." Both Adam and Joe's mirth bled away, leaving the two men somber.

"Something happened, didn't it?" Amy asked softly. "Something that destroyed a lot of the files." She laughed. "Doctor Zoll's been frantic trying to tie them all back together into a workable picture."

"Kalas happened," Adam said firmly, at the same time that Joe said, "Adam happened."

"Now this I've  _got_  to hear," Amy said, looking back and forth between them.

"Well, Kalas came hunting for Methos, and killed Don," Adam told her -

"- and Adam didn't want anyone finding the cagey bastard," Joe said with a sideways grin -

"- so I sort of scrambled what I had assembled," Adam admitted. "And then I never really managed to get it all back together before I left the Watchers."

"Which suited you just fine, I'm sure," Joe said, barely managing to keep his laughter in check.

Adam merely smirked, and toasted Joe with his half-empty glass.

"Why didn't you want anyone to find him?" Amy asked curiously.

"Oh, I'm sure he had his reasons," Joe chuckled.

Adam threw the grizzled old bluesman a sharp look before turning back to Amy. "You've got to understand that the head of a five thousand year old Immortal is a great temptation to everyone in the Game. If even the Watchers knew where he was, it'd get out, and then every Immortal out there would be hunting him."

"You sure don't think much of Watcher security."

Adam threw Joe another look, this one amused. "Well, no, considering how many times I've broken it myself. Not to mention Horton, Shapiro -"

Amy shifted her gaze to her father, scandalized now. " _Joe!_ "

"Don't look at me, I can't keep up with him." Joe pulled another beer into Adam's empty glass and slid it to his friend. "He sees right through me."

"You know, there's this thing you do with your face, Joe -" and Adam demonstrated, right up until the cane came swinging at his head.

Amy stared at her father, still threatening Adam's beer with his cane, and then at the grinning Immortal hiding behind and below the barstool next to her. "I cannot  _believe_  you two," she muttered. "So why don't you want anyone to hunt Methos? I mean, it's not like it's any difference to you."

Adam stood, suddenly the innocent grad student. "I admire anyone who can keep his head that long," he said with a grandiose wave of his arms. Joe was no threat to anyone now; he seemed to be struck by a sudden fit of coughing. "His continued survival gives me hope that I too will make it through a millennium or two firmly ensconced in this crazy world of ours."

"But how do you know that he's still alive?" Amy asked, her Watcher curiosity piqued. "We haven't had a Watcher on him for well over a thousand years."

Adam regained his seat and took up his beer. "I've found evidence of Methos sightings as recently as last century in Tibet," he said. "The old fellow gets around." He met Amy's eyes with a smirk. "Research suddenly doesn't seem so boring, does it?"

Amy smiled. "No, I guess not."


	3. First SUV Out Of Paris

The third time Amy Thomas met Death was some weeks later, around three in the morning Paris time. She was sleeping, shifting and turning lazily in the warm summer breezes, or at least she  _had_  been sleeping until the all-too-insistent chirps and vibrations of her cell phone woke her.

"This had better be good," she grumbled groggily into the mouthpiece once she'd managed to fumble the thing open.

"It's an emergency, Amy," her father (who wasn't, quite, but had become more of one in the last month than she'd admit) told her. His voice was laced with weariness and pain. "Buzz us in."

And so she did.

When she let them into her apartment, 'us' turned out to be Joe and his angular Immortal friend Adam, who was even paler than normal. From the bullet holes in his brand new coat, Amy decided he probably had a reason to be. "What's going on, Joe? Do you have any concept what time it is?"

"Time to leave Paris," Adam bit out. "You'd best pack, and quickly. We don't know how long we have before they get here."

Amy closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it. "Excuse me?"

"Somebody's killing Watchers, Amy." Joe's voice was heavy. "Twelve so far tonight." He sighed. "They got Doctor Zoll an hour ago."

"They'll be coming for you too," Adam said, "and don't you doubt it. Now go and pack. Essentials only, we'll be travelling light."

Still not quite awake, Amy trundled off to find her suitcase. Maybe this would all make more sense in the car.

~ - ~ - ~

Well, yes and no.

"Where are we going?" Amy ended up with the back seat of Adam's SUV all to herself; Adam was driving, and Joe rode shotgun. To be fair, he  _was_  the one with the gun; she hadn't had time or inclination to take a refresher since the Walker incident. Oddly enough, she'd imagined she'd be safe in research...

"Nepal," Adam said.

"Nepal?!" Joe beat Amy to it this time. "What the hell are we going to Nepal for?"

"What he said," Amy mumbled as she leaned against the window and peered blearily out.

Adam laid one long finger on the top of the steering wheel. "Firstly, all three of us habitually reside in either Europe or North America. They'll be expecting us to run to Seacouver, Joe, if they know anything about us at all. They won't be expecting Nepal."

"I know  _I_  wasn't," Amy chimed in.

"Shh," Adam chided with a smile towards the rear view mirror. Joe watched him warily. "Secondly, three months ago Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod purchased a one-way ticket from Jakarta to Kathmandu as Ryan Connor." He glanced over at his grimacing passenger. "I didn't find out until last week. I've been meaning to follow up, but, well, I was busy."

"Shit," mumbled the Watcher.

"And thirdly, I have some things I want to pick up from an old friend."

"It couldn't wait?" Amy rubbed her temples absently.

Adam shrugged. "Now's as good a time as any."

"Right, because the bullets are back thataway," Joe growled. "Sounds familiar, buddy."

"Tried and true survival technique, Joseph. Of course it sounds familiar."

"So what time's our flight?" Amy asked. She stretched her arms;  _finally_  she was starting to feel awake. "And can we stop and get some coffee on the way?"

"No flight, and I'll buy a round of coffee for everyone the next time we stop for gas, not before."

Joe snorted. " _You'll_  buy."

Adam seemed distracted. "Of course I'll buy, Joe. I've got plenty of cash on me, which is more than I can say for either of you two. I'd rather not be tracked down and executed twice in one week; it's a terrible burden on the upholstery." He sounded so ... so  _blase_  about it.

"But..." Amy's attempt at joining the conversation was overridden by her father's sudden bellow.

"You  _never_  buy, Adam, and I've got the bills to prove it!"

"Excuse me," Amy stated loudly as she leaned through the space between the seats, "but did you say we're  _not_  flying to Kathmandu?"

Adam turned slightly, met her eye, and winked. "Lovely day for a drive, isn't it?"

It was too much. It was all too much. "How do you intend to just  _drive_  to  _Kathmandu_?"

"Well, there were going to be some boats involved at some point, possibly a bit of hiking, but I was trying not to think of that part," Adam admitted.

Joe twisted around, his fingers beating out a staccato rhythm on the arm rest. "Amy, we don't know who's after us, or why, or what resources they have. We have to assume that they have access to everything the Watchers do. That includes flight manifests. Flying is too dangerous."

"As are all forms of bank access, passports, and any other sorts of identification that are tracable back to the three of us," Adam broke in. "I've got papers for myself under a few different names, but we're going to have to stop and find the two of you some new identities as well. None of this sentimental MacLeod-style crap, either, but good solid names that don't tie in to your old lives."

"Right, because you  _never_  reuse names,  _ **Adam**_."

Amy sighed. "I give up. The two of you are worse than children. Really!" The front seat stilled immediately, Joe sulking, Adam smirking. She looked out the window to avoid them and stared at the lush countryside rolling by. "Do you think," she said plaintively, "the Watcher library will still be there when we get back?"

"No idea," Joe admitted.

"There's books in the back," Adam offered. "The black backpack on top."

Amy twisted and pulled the backpack into the back seat. She unzipped the bag and peered inside. "So what are these, Adam?"

"You're on the Methos Chronicles now, Amy, possibly the  _only_  one on that project after tonight. They're yours." The Immortal smiled cheerily into the rear mirror, ignoring the stunned Watcher sitting next to him.

"You're giving Amy your journals?" Joe seemed positively flabbergasted.

"No, Joe, I'm giving Amy  _Methos's_  journals," Adam teased. "Keep up." Joe gaped at him, then twisted and watched eagerly as Amy hefted one of the old volumes out of the backpack and held it in her lap. She ran her hands over the cover, awe simmering in her eyes, and she did not open it. Joe shook his head and leaned back against the headrest, shutting his eyes.

"I'll let you research rats hash it out, then.  _This_  old field op needs his beauty sleep."

Adam's small smirk grew. "You do that, Joseph. You do that."

Amy waited until she was sure Joe was asleep, then cracked the book open. She glanced up and met Adam's gaze in the mirror; he was watching her intently. "Is there an explanation of the Game in one of these?" she whispered. He shook his head. She sighed, and after a long pause continued softly, "I've been thinking about what you told me in the bar, about the Prize being a lie. I haven't had a chance to look through the Chronicles yet, though." She swung her feet up on the bench seat and settled against the door behind her, Methos's journal held tightly to her chest. She stroked it absently as she asked, "Do you think I'll ever get the chance?"

"There's never enough time," Adam said in a low voice, "but if we make it through this, yes, I think you will."

Amy nodded slowly, accepting his faith in the same spirit in which it was given. "Thank you."

She cracked open the book and began to read by penlight. (What she could, at least; apparently Methos was a  _paranoid_  old bastard who knew entirely too many languages to be comfortable with just one per sentence.) The hours flew past.


	4. Of Coffee, Coups, and Conveniences

Everything glittered. The library was a vision of burgundy trimmed in gold, mahogany shelves and ancient tomes half-visible beneath the voluminous velvet draperies. She was in the midst of a poker game with Father Darius, Stephen Hawking, and a very large and very purple rabbit in spectacles, and she was  _winning_.

... and there was something shaking at her foot ...

"Ow!" That didn't  _sound_  like Darius, but what did she know?

Amy started awake. The bit of sky she could see glowed with bright morning sunshine. Near her feet Adam leaned through the SUV's open door, elbows resting on the far side of the bench seat. Currently he was preoccupied with rubbing his nose.

"Huh?" Gosh, Amy, you're so  _eloquent_  when you first wake up. Bet he's wishing he'd let Walker shoot you again, now...

Adam raised his head slowly and with a great deal of resignation. "Good morning."

"Er, good morning." She peered around, but Joe was out of sight. They seemed to be parked outside a one-story concrete building in the middle of a large fenced-in asphalt lot. Less than pristine two-story houses lined the quiet street. "Where are we?"

"You wanted coffee," Adam said patiently. "We've stopped for gas. And you  _kicked_  me."

"Sorry!" Amy's hands flew to her mouth. Methos's journal fell to the floor. "Oh God!" She twisted upright and hurriedly grabbed the scuffed leather-bound book, frantically brushing it off. "I'm so sorry!"

Adam grinned at her. "Remind me to let Joe wake you up next time. You're dangerous, Miss Thomas." He extended a hand to help her out of the car as she nervously stared at him. "Come on, your dad's waiting."

Actually Joe didn't notice her come in at all. He was on his cell phone in the corner, talking to someone in low tones and utterly ignoring the cooling coffee sitting on the table in front of him. He looked particularly haggard in the flourescent light. Joe established as busy, she took a moment to survey her surroundings. The convenience store, or so it appeared, had a coffee machine, a bathroom, and three booths, Amy was happy to see, as well as a great many rows of unhealthy snack foods that hid most of the sales counter from the eating area. All the plastic-wrapped treats looked delicious and  _highly_  fattening.

"Do you want anything else?" Adam asked her.

She shook her head. "Just black coffee, one lump sugar, no cream." She paused and looked at him hopefully. "And a pastry, if there are any?"

"I think I can manage that," he drawled lazily. "Back in a moment. Go on, keep Joe company." She nodded gratefully and slid into the booth across from her father. (Who she really did consider her father now, she realized. Nothing like constant danger to make a man seem paternal. ... ...oh,  _hell_.)

"No, no -- look, I gotta go, Amy's awake. Yeah, she's fine. I'll give you a call in a few hours, when I know a little more of what's going on. You too." Joe flipped the phone shut and tossed it on the table with a groan. "Thirty nine dead."

There were no words. None. Amy stared at him. "Are there any of us  _left_  in Paris, then?"

"Twelve others made it out. Everyone who stayed, or who didn't get the message in time, is dead." Joe took a deep breath and blew it out. Amy winced. "I did manage to get a hold of the Academy before anything happened there, though. They got out safe."

"That's only, what, an hour outside of Paris?" Amy rolled her head on her shoulders trying to get the leftover kinks from sleeping upright out of her neck. It wasn't working. "Do you think they were in danger at all?"

"The building got blown up an hour and a half after they'd evacuated," Joe said with a shrug. "I'd say that's dangerous." He took a sip of the sludge in his cup, grimaced, and shouted, "Adam!"

The Immortal's voice breezed through the store. "Stop bellowing, Joe, I'll be there in a minute."

"Oh, bother." Amy rested her arms on the table and her forehead on her arms. "What do we do now?"

"Rome first," Joe said. "It's the closest regional H.Q., and we've got some reports to make."

Amy picked up the phone. "Mind if I make a few calls of my own?"

"Go right ahead." Joe sighed. "Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."

Not so much. Her landlady wasn't answering. Neither were her friends from the Watchers' Paris branch. Amy supposed that meant they were either dead, running, or on vacation. Since she'd been transferred to the research division she hadn't needed a real job for cover, so there was no one to notify there.

She settled for calling her mother. No one answered there either, and after five rings Beryl's dispassionate voice came on with a stereotypically vapid request for name, number, and time. Amy took a deep breath and waited for the tone. "Mum, I'm assuming you've heard what's happened. You don't need to worry about me, I'm safe and sound and on my way out of the country with Dad. Joe. Well, anyway." She rubbed her temple absently. "Guess I'll talk to you later, then. Watch your back." She flipped the phone shut and tossed it back on the table. "That was a waste."

Joe shrugged and sipped his coffee. Amy leaned back against the bench and stared up at the ceiling. What a lot of little holes in the tile up there. She could sympathize, really; her life felt peppered by gaps at the moment.

Adam slid into the booth next to her. "C'mon, scoot over." She obediently moved half a foot, and the Immortal promptly spread into a controlled sprawl over the space she'd just vacated. He set a styrofoam cup and a small napkin-wrapped parcel down in front of her. "Hope you like apple."

"Apple's fine." She pulled the paper away from the pastry and eyed the glazed confection suspiciously. Ah well, life is short.

"By the way, Adam Pierson's dead."

"What? But you're right here," Amy protested.

"I'm here, certainly, but our dear friend Adam was shot and killed last night in his flat." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you see? It's perfect timing, actually. I've been wondering how to get rid of him for a while now."

"All right, but I still don't understand why Mr. Pierson's impending doom is so important to you that you have to worry with it this morning." Amy pushed her bangs away from her eyes and took a tentative sip of coffee. Sludge. Muck.  _Bitter_  muck, with just a hint of sweet. "This is terrible!"

"It's also heavily caffienated," Adam said wryly, "and it's your turn to drive next." He gave a great yawn, accentuated with a particularly theatrical stretch that nearly brushed her head. "I haven't had any sleep in the past twenty-four hours, and dying  _really_  takes it out of you."

"Right, so I'll just drive on to Nepal while you're napping, then," Amy muttered. She tore a strip off her pastry and dangled it in front of Joe. He shrugged helplessly. "So what  _should_  I call you, then, since you say Adam is dead?"

"Actually, I think you oughtta hold off on that a little while, buddy," Joe broke in. "What with Watcher central out of commission, we're going to need all the experienced folks we can get to put the organization back together." He shook his head. "Maybe we can fix a few things while we're at it."

Adam shrugged. "I suppose I can put my demise off for a little while." He leaned over the table and grinned. "What did you have in mind?"

Joe grinned back. "Glad you asked, Adam. Glad you asked." He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and started scribbling on Amy's discarded napkin. She gamely sipped her coffee and tried to ignore the worst of the plotting.

When the conspirators began discussing their contact lists with an eye to potential puppet Tribunes, though, Amy decided she had had enough. "Look, it's all well and good to rebuild the Watchers over hot drinks, but back in reality we've got a larger problem." She met her momentarily silent audience's eyes squarely, each in turn. "Who is trying to kill us and why?"

"I'm not sure," Joe admitted.

"I've got a few theories," Adam said, "but nothing solid yet."

"But you've seen some of the assassins, surely."

"Well, no," said Joe. "Adam barely got me out the window before the bar exploded."

"Did they blow up your flat, too, then?" she asked the Immortal.

"No, they just shot it full of lead." He shrugged. "As soon as I revived I got out of there, but I didn't see anybody lurking about. Very professional job, really." He twisted and plucked a newspaper from the empty booth behind him. The front page of the culture section declared in a bold headline, 'Art Curator Brutally Murdered In Museum Shooting'. Amy Zoll's security photo and a grainy snapshot of a lumpy blanket lying in a puddle of blood, with bare feet sticking out beneath, illustrated the point quite thoroughly.

Amy stared at him. "What do you and Doctor Zoll have in common that Joe and the Academy don't? ... oh, bloody hell."

"Your flat's probably still there," Adam said brightly, "though I wouldn't put any bets on your landlady's continuing health. Or any files you had, for that matter."

Amy threw her empty styrofoam cup at him.

"They were after your research?" Joe seemed dumbfounded. "Who the hell would want it?"

"No, Joe, they were after  _two_  things." Adam held up one finely-boned hand. "Think about it. The Watchers are decimated, and our research was left intact." He shrugged. "Likely a small crack unit with military training. I'd wager on mercenaries, myself." He glanced around the store and lowered his voice. "We've always wondered what would happen if an Immortal with a penchant for headhunting found us. Or perhaps it was a government operation. We haven't exactly been discreet, the last few years."

His train of thought seemed clear enough to Amy, who took it upon herself to run with it. "Either way, whoever it was has kept the Watchers - us - under surveillance for a long time. After all, they knew  _exactly_  what they wanted and how to get it." Adam nodded, flashed her an encouraging smile, and then stood.

"Now that we're all on the same page, I've got to make a few calls myself," he told them both, "and I'd prefer to do it over a landline." Amy waved one hand in vague benediction as he left in search of a payphone, then propped her elbows up on the table and regarded her father - Lord, her  _father!_  - intently.

"You do realize he's an Immortal, right?" she began once she was sure they were alone.

Joe spluttered. "Of course!"

She continued implacably. "You also realize that we are Watchers, and we are  _not_  to fraternize with Immortals, let alone let them into our ranks."

"Well, yeah, Amy," Joe said, and tapped his wrist. "I wear one of these too, remember? I took the Oath, same as you."

"I know that," she told him archly. "I was wondering if you still did."

Joe sighed. "Look, Amy, Adam's been in the Watchers off and on for a long time. I grant you, it's like pulling teeth to get him to admit to  _anything_ , but I've done some research on my own with the information he's let slip over the years. It won't be the first time he's helped Watchers after a disaster." He ran his hands through his short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. "And frankly we could use someone with his sort of mind for getting though this one."

"Twisted?" Amy suggested with a wicked grin.

"And paranoid, and shifty, and completely unwilling to lay down and die," Joe told her, utterly serious. "If we can just get him to help us, we've got it made."

"Like with Walker." She sighed. "You're playing a dangerous game, Joe."

He shrugged. "I'm just trying to keep him interested. If he skips out on us, we're both as good as dead, and you know it." He gestured towards the table, and underneath, his protheses. "Pretty hard to hide an old guy with no feet, no money, and a funny tattoo, you know?"

"I like to think somewhat more of our chances alone," Amy told him, "but it would be easier with Adam's help, I'll give you that." She shook her head. "I just hope you're right about him."

"He's my friend," Joe said. "You've gotta trust someone sometime, right?"

There wasn't much she could say to that. After all, she already owed both of them her life.


	5. Weekday at Bernie's

After everyone piled back into their seats, silence prevailed. Even Adam was quiet as he gave Amy directions back to the A6 south. "I'll need to stop in Lyon to pick up a few things," he told her, "so wake me up when we get there."

"All right." Amy glanced at him in the rear view mirror; he was spread out over the back seat like jam on toast. It looked very comfortable.

"Hey, Adam, pass me up my laptop before you go to sleep," Joe ordered. "I gotta make some notes."

"Welcome to the digital age, Joe," Adam said as he leaned up and shuffled through their luggage. "I was wondering when you'd finally join the rest of us."

Joe quirked an eyebrow at the Immortal as he passed first the laptop, and then a tangled mess of power cables and adaptors and whatnot, forward. "Given the number of times you've snuck into the Watcher database with my information, I'd have thought you'dve figured it by now."

"Touche!" Adam fell back into a boneless sprawl with a laugh. "Straight through the heart, Joe."

"I can't believe I'm the youngest one here," Amy muttered as she accelerated.

"Well, they do say the mind's the first to go," Joe deadpanned.

The next few hours passed by slow and languid, with only a few hairy moments brought on by overly exuberant weaving vehicles. With Adam asleep and Joe busy on his laptop, Amy spent her time running over what she remembered of Doctor Zoll's introduction to the Methos Project. Memories of Doctor Zoll were bittersweet; she had been a rather domineering supervisor, prone to over-excitability, and Amy had not known her well, but she'd seen flashes of a true passion for history in her supervisor several times during the month they'd had working together. Amy sniffled her way through several tissues before Lyon.

Joe shook Adam awake when they reached the junction with the A46, and the Immortal gave directions to the Criox Rousse, one of the older sections of the city. He stopped her near one of Lyon's famous traboules. "There's a parking spot right there. Pull over and we'll head on in."

As soon as she'd stopped the car Adam hopped out and punched in a number on his cell. He spoke into it briefly, then looked back. Amy raised an eyebrow at him as Joe slammed his door shut. "We go this way," Adam told them both with a tilt of his head towards the traboule. He led them through a maze of narrow passages, occasionally stopping to input a code into a keypad at a locked door before continuing on through. At length he stopped and dug out his phone again. "I've got to tell them we're here," he said. "It will just be a moment."

"Take your time," Amy said absently as she scrutinized the dingy metal door that Adam seemed to think was their destination. No markings, and no handle, but the frame was metal too and set solidly into the brick. A few moments later Adam returned. He pressed past the two mortals and knocked at the door, five quick raps followed by two slow.

A loud click sounded, and the door cracked open an inch.

"Come on in," Adam said as he pushed it further open and disappeared into the dark hallway beyond, "I want to introduce you to Bernie."

Amy looked at Joe out of the corner of his eyes. He shrugged and mouthed, "Paranoid and shifty."

Amy laughed all the way through the hall.

~ - ~ - ~

Bernie was a mature and immaculately groomed woman with piercing grey eyes, long brunette curls, and warm olive skin; Amy guessed she was about forty, perhaps forty-five, assuming that she wasn't Immortal. She was more muscular than slight, and her knock-off Chanel suit hugged all the right curves. Adam grinned and kissed her on the cheeks, then turned back to his travelling companions who had nervously stopped just inside the door. "Joe, Amy, this is Francesca Bernard, an old business partner of mine."

"Call me Francesca and I will flay your skin from your bones." The woman smiled sharply, her teeth glinting in the gleam of the halogen lamps. "You may call me Bernard, or Bern, or even Bernie as Adam does, but my first name is off limits to customers."

Adam smoothly broke in. "Showing your teeth already, Bernie? We won't be here long enough to cause trouble, don't worry."

"You have already begun the trouble, cherie, when you see the need to show up on my doorstep with only a few hours warning." Bern - Amy couldn't bring herself to call the woman 'Bernie' - looked at him sternly. "The less I know the better, but the storm following on your heels is large enough to drown us all."

Adam winced. "Storm? What storm?"

"I take it you have not listened to the radio on your way here," Bern said dryly. "Nor seen a newspaper, nor looked at the Internet?"

"Not exactly," Adam said.

Joe looked a bit green. "What's going on?"

Bern turned briefly to her assistant, a young man overshadowed by the thick-framed glasses he wore. "Les, show them the news."

The wall lit up with television screens, at least a dozen of them, all containing one talking head or another with invariably Parisian backdrops and differing levels of daylight behind them. TF1, FR2, CNN, the BBC - Amy latched onto that last, as familiar as an old friend, and tried to drown out the others.

"... have expressed their shock at the brutal, yet highly methodical attacks perpetrated in the early hours of morning by an unknown organisation. Between the hours of 2 and 5 AM, local time, ten buildings were targeted with rockets and incinidery missiles. At least forty persons are confirmed dead in these attacks, and many more are missing. Local officials state..."

"All of France is in shock," Bern stated firmly, jarring Amy out of her rapt focus on the newscaster, "and people in shock do stupid things. Security checks will be particularly thorough for the next week or two."

"We don't have a great deal to hide," Adam said, "except our identities."

"And a sword," Bern told him, lips quirked into an odd approximation of a smile.

"Well, yes," Adam said, "but I have a very good explanation for that, and proper papers as well."

"You might just be better off hiding it in the undercarriage of your vehicle," Bern replied. "It would be less suspicious that way, so long as no one finds it."

Adam's voice was cold as ice. "The sword stays with me."

Bern sighed. "As you say." She surveyed the three of them for a moment, arms crossed over her chest and one finger absently tapping her chin. "Very well, then." She pointed at Amy. "You first, over against the wall."

Bernard and her mute assistant took a number of photographs of each of them from various angles. "That should do it," she said at last. Joe wiped the sweat from his brow and gave a sigh of relief.

"You'll dispose of the negatives properly, of course." Adam's words were not quite a question, but the forger's eyes narrowed.

"Obviously," she bit out. "I  _am_  a professional." She waved her hand imperiously. "Out, all of you. There is a cafe on the boulevard nearby. I will send Les there with your new papers in, shall we say," and she checked her watch, "two hours." She eyed Adam suspiciously. "I do not want to see you again for at least a year. You bring too many complications into my life."

Adam bowed and kissed her hand, and she laughed. "As you like," he said. "I  _am_  sorry for the inconvenience."

"You are never sorry for anything," Bern told him archly, "but you lie so prettily that I am inclined to forgive you anyway. Now, go, show yourselves out."

Amy was more than happy to oblige.

~ - ~ - ~

"That woman is  _strange_ ," Amy murmured in wonder as she stirred her coffee anti-clockwise. "Strange and somewhat frightening."

"She was such a sweet child, too," Adam said wistfully. "I knew her father; he was part of the Resistance during the War. He left his first family for Bernie's mother and never looked back."

Joe broke in eagerly. "You were in the Resistance, Adam?"

"No, I was in England during the War itself, but I lived in Paris a few years before, just as everything started to go wrong." The Immortal shrugged. "I like Paris. Anyway, I was working as a tailor and Michel was one of the house messengers. He was a veritable bundle of energy as a teenager." Adam smiled sadly. "After the War he was an entirely different person, dark and focused and unwilling to compromise." He turned and looked out the window, eyes gazing blankly through the scores of pedestrians and vehicles passing by to some distant past. "I miss that boy."

Amy fiddled with her coffee, finally setting spoon to saucer. "It must be hard to keep losing people you care about."

"You get used to it." Adam turned back to the table. "At any rate, we'd better change before we cross the border. Wouldn't do to be seen in the same clothes as we were wearing in our shiny new ID photos, would it?"

Joe stood. "I'll go dig something up. Just shirts'll do, right?" At Adam's nod he turned and stumped out of the cafe.

Amy watched him go with a smile. It seemed a lovely opportunity to interrogate the Immortal a bit more thoroughly without Joe around to distract her. She propped her chin on her hands and gave Adam her best innocent look. "So, how old are you?"

He eyed her warily. "Old enough to know better than to answer that question."

"Joe said you've been in the Watchers before. Several times, in fact."

"Joe has a big mouth." He shifted in his seat. "You could just ask him, you know."

"Joe's terribly loyal to his friends, and that includes you. I don't want to force him into any difficult decisions." She shrugged. "Besides, right now I want  _your_  answers."

He smirked at her. "Are you sure about that? The truth and I have never been particularly well acquainted."

Amy smiled and slowly gave her coffee another swirl with the spoon. "I'm curious about you."

"I don't like to talk about myself," he told her. "I'm shy."

"I  _see_." She sighed. "Can't blame me for trying, right?"

"Maybe you should try again sometime." He paused. "When we know each other a little better."

"Fair enough." She let go of the spoon and turned her attention to the pedestrians passing outside the plate glass window, her fingers tapping nervously on the glass tabletop. "You know, I thought Research was boring." He remained silent, waiting patiently as she collected her thoughts. "I should have been counting my blessings with each passing hour."

Adam favored her with a gentle smile as he laid his hand over hers, stilling her nervous twitches and bringing her attention back to the present. "Actually, Amy, this is very much like being in Research: long periods of boredom and bad handwriting interspersed with short periods of desperately running for your life."

She snorted. "And all of it confusing."

"Well, yes. If life's not confusing, you're doing it wrong." He gave her his 'easily amused' grin. Lord, she was learning his smiles. So much for the non-interference policy.

"Speaking of confusion and bad handwriting..." She let the suspense built up for a moment. "Methos."

Adam's face stiffened just a touch and he let go of her hand. "What about him?"

She looked out the window again. "I could only read the Greek and Latin," she confessed quietly. "That's what most Chronicles are written in, so I've never had cause to learn anything else, so far as ancient languages go, before now. At least it was enough to understand  _some_  of what he wrote." She could feel Adam watching her, though he didn't reply and she didn't return his gaze. Her fingers blindly sought out his and rested gently against them, and he did not move away. "I wonder what he was running from." She turned back and caught his eyes with her own. "I wonder if he ever managed to stop running."

"I have no idea," Adam said with sincerity, "but I can read you the rest, if that'll help."

"I'd appreciate that," Amy told him.


	6. Ink and Blood

The lunch crowd had come and gone, and Amy sat listening patiently as Adam and Joe traded tall tales around the table. Joe's stories of Vietnam touched a cord in her; here was this bright and magnificent man, intriguing and large-hearted, who should have been part of her childhood. Instead he was a stranger. In many ways he and Adam were closer family than she could ever be; they'd been friends and fellow Watchers for thirteen years already, and the two of them had a large web of mutual acquaintances and many shared adventures behind them. Such as the Immortal database.

"Wait a minute.  _You_  did that?"

Adam raised an eyebrow. "You've heard of the ill-omened disc, I take it?"

"Of course I have." Amy set her empty cup towards the side of the table. "Everyone in my class in the Academy did. A sort of object lesson, you might say, in what happens when you get careless."

Joe chuckled. "That's for sure."

"Don and I weren't totally at fault," Adam disagreed. "If Freddy hadn't been such a clumsy oaf and gotten himself caught by Kalas, none of that mess would have happened in the first place."

Amy shivered, recalling her own close brush with a wicked immortal. Joe patted her hand gently. Across the table, Adam's eyes rose to a point behind her. "I think our papers are here," he murmured, lips barely moving, and then he smiled brightly (and utterly insincerely, she felt) and waved their visitor over.

It was the quiet young man who'd operated the electronics in Francesca Bernard's 'office', a red and orange ripstop nylon messenger bag thrown lazily over his shoulder. "Your photos are ready, Monseiur Pierson," he said flatly.

"Thank you, Leslie." Adam quickly opened the envelope the messenger handed over and peered at the contents. "The payment went through, I assume."

"Your account remains good," he replied. "I trust that concludes our business?"

"Very satisfactorily," Adam agreed. "Please convey my compliments to your employer; the portfolio is quite attractive." The young man nodded and retreated.

Amy leaned across the table. "Can I see?"

Adam pulled a few ten-franc notes from his wallet and tossed them on the table. "In the car."

Joe was already getting to his feet.

~ - ~ - ~

Once everyone was safely ensconced in the SUV, belts buckled and doors locked, Adam reached into the manila envelope and drew forth their new papers. "All right, children, listen up." He fanned the passports and identification cards. "These are your new best friends. Learn them, love them, live them and breathe them."

"Shove it,  _old man_ ," Joe told him with a quirky smile. "I've done this before. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've done this before with  _you_  once or twice in the last decade. So don't go giving me any lectures and I'll return the favor."

"Point taken," Adam replied with a sideways glance. He separated the laminated cards and booklets and handed one set to Joe, then held his arm up with the other.

"Well, I haven't," Amy told them both as she took her papers and began to rifle through them. "I've never had to disappear before, I've never lied to get into a bar, and I've never forged  _anything_." She stopped for a moment gave Joe the sternest glance she could manage. "You know what that means, don't you?"

All three Watchers spoke the words together. "Rite - of - passage!"

It felt good to giggle with them, it really did, but it was also sobering to speak that stock phrase mocked around many a poker table by people with funny tattoos in this context, to realize that so many of those same comrades were gone now. She glanced down at her left wrist.

Joe sighed and turned in his seat, grasping the wrist in which she was suddenly so interested. His own tattoo caught her eye, and she traced the scarred lines gently. "I had that removed once," he told her, his voice gruff with an unspoken loss she knew only too well. "Hurt like a sonofabitch."

"Why'd you come back?" She was surprised to find her own voice hesitant, as though she could not call it fully forth. "I heard about the trial. The Tribunes wanted you dead. Why would you possibly want to come back?"

"Because... because this is where I belong."

She wiped the moisture away from her eyes with her free hand and looked down to find Joe holding their wrists together, their shared vows visible in the shared pattern on their skin, and beneath it she knew also their shared blood.

"I know it hurts, honey." His voice cracked. "Oh God, does it hurt. But we're still alive, and that's something. We've got to keep going just as long as we can for as far as we can."

"And get the bastards that did this." Fury was rising in her from beneath the sorrow; she held onto it like a lifeline, keeping her from falling into despair.

Joe sighed again. "Sweetheart, the most important thing right now is just to stay alive. Promise me you'll remember that." She stared into his eyes and nodded once. "Good," he said heavily. "Live."

"I'm glad you've learned something from me, Joe," Adam said with an uncommonly serious undertone in his voice. Amy glanced over at him in shock just as she realized a third hand had come to support both hers and her father's, a third tattoo to join their twain. He was an Immortal, and she knew this, but he was also a Watcher, and that made them practically family right now.

"I learn from you all the time, buddy," Joe laughed weakly as he broke away and wiped his eyes. "You're thinking of MacLeod." Amy slowly put her hand down, still savoring that brief moment of camraderie, of kinship beyond their circumstances.

"God, yes," Adam said fervently as he sat back and tilted his head towards the fuzzy ceiling. "Pain in the arse. Always riding in on his white horse to save the day, never stopping to think about why."

"I never did thank you for that bit with O'Roarke," Joe began.

Adam cut him off quickly. "Don't worry about it, Joe. You didn't need to." The Immortal paused, then continued on with a lighter tone. "Now, Mac,  _he_  probably should have thanked me, but he was too busy flinching away."

"You didn't tell me that part," Joe replied, concern shining in his gaze. Amy watched in fascination as the two old friends bantered.

"Yes, well, you know Mac. He had a bad dream while he was out of it and thought I was trying to kill him." Adam shook his head.

"That's our Duncan," Joe grinned, "always hallucinating."

"Too much time in monasteries softens the brain," Adam said with a shrug.

Joe burst into chuckles, and Amy joined him for a bit before she realized he was coughing, and his eyes were damp again. The words leapt from her throat without thought.  
"Are you all right, dad?"

Joe eyes widened and he wheezed to a stop. "Yeah, honey, I'm fine." He smiled slowly. "Just fine." He looked over at Adam, who watched the two of them calmly, though Amy could tell most of his attention was focused on Joe just now. "I gotta say, though, it has been a really shitty couple of years overall. Maybe Mac's right; we could all use a break right now."

Amy stilled. "What happened?"

Another shrug from the Immortal in the driver's seat. "What didn't?"

"You gotta understand, Amy," Joe began earnestly, "the first twenty years I watched Mac he was out of the Game. He'd settled down with a lovely gal, he had a great business, hell, he had a great life. But then someone hunting his kinsman came after Mac."

"Connor," Amy murmured. "I've heard of him." She shrank slightly as soon as the words had left her mouth. Of course she had heard of the elder Highlander, the man who'd defeated the Kurzan. What Watcher hadn't?

"And suddenly he was back in the Game," Adam said softly, ignoring her gaffe.

"Yeah, the Game," Joe spat. "Kalas. The Dark Quickening." He choked. "Richie." She watched with concern as he took a few deep breaths to compose himself. "And... other things." He glanced hesitantly towards Adam, sympathy brimming in his eyes, and she drew back a bit at the implication that there were deeper matters left unsaid, secrets the two of them held that she might never understand. "It's just been a very ...  _stressful_  time for all of us," he finally finished, lamely.

"Yeah, well, I had to babysit a maudlin Highlander after he killed Sean Burns," Adam grouched. " _And_  patch you back together after that mockery of a trial, might I add."

Joe chuckled as he reached over and patted his friend's hand. "You always complain, Adam, but I notice you keep coming back." Adam just glared at him, a tiny smile flitting about his lips.

"Babysit, huh." Amy grinned as she broke into the conversation; they'd almost forgotten her, it seemed, and she was determined to take advantage of that. "He's, what, four hundred and fifty? You're at least two hundred from what Walker was saying, but does that mean you're older than the Highlander?" She smiled in what she hoped was a supportive sort of way. Trustworthy, perhaps? All right, so he'd told her he wouldn't talk about his past yet, but that didn't mean she couldn't keep trying.

Adam glared at her, and she quailed just a bit at his apparent hostility. He slowly smirked and she relaxed infinitesimally. "Maturity is not solely the province of age, Amy." Joe snorted loudly. Adam ignored him as he continued blithely on. "It doesn't matter how old you are if you've never bothered to learn the truly important lessons."

Amy wrinkled her nose in amusement. "Fine, fine, don't tell me." She sat back against her seat and put on airs of a disinterest she didn't feel. Damned Immortal was going to be difficult, well, she'd manage. "I'll just have to figure it out on my own."

"Heaven help us all," Adam muttered under his breath as he turned the key in the ignition.

~ - ~ - ~

An hour later they'd caught up to a storm. Outside the rain poured down, occasional flashes of lightning brightening the dark skies. Amy propped her feet against the back of Joe's seat and surveyed her new ID closely in the dim light. "I don't feel like an Amelia. Not at all."

"At least yours sounds like your real name," her father griped. "Robert Kessler. What am I supposed to do, go by Bob?"

"I can understand Amy's complaint as she's so new at this, but really, Joseph, I expected better of you. Grizzled veterans of the identity swap ought to be able to assume and discard names at will, unlike the rookie back there." Adam smirked as he glanced over at her father. Joe rolled his eyes and turned to stare outside.

She let the rookie comment slide and latched onto the more interesting bit. "Kessler, huh. That's Amelia's last name too." She grinned at Joe's back. "Think we're father and daughter?"  
Joe turned his head back towards her with a sigh. "Think we can pull it off?"

"Definitely." Amy grinned at him, and he positively  _beamed_  in response. She made a face at him and tilted her head towards Adam. "So who's our chauffeur here?"

"Wait, let me guess." Joe scrutinized their driver's profile with exaggerated concentration. "Pierce Adamson."

"Come on, Joe, give me  _some_  credit for originality," Adam pleaded.

Amy gave no indication that she'd heard him. "And what is Pierce Adamson to us?"

Joe turned to his old friend. "Hey, Adam, can you cook?" The Immortal gave a long-suffering sigh and nodded in acquiescence. "Then it's obvious. He's my keeper. Feeds me, drives me around, keeps me from the worst of my dementia." Joe waggled his eyebrows. "And I have a  _lot_  of dementia."

Adam shook his head. "Ridiculous notion. I'd like to suggest a counter-offer."

"Sure." Joe shrugged. "Do your worst."

Adam stared straight ahead, his knuckles tightening around the wheel. "I'm your cousin's widower." Amy blinked twice. "It's easy to remember because it's true."

"The two of you got hitched?" Joe's mouth hung open.

"Not on paper, but in all the ways that mattered we were husband and wife." Adam glanced over at Joe briefly before flicking his attention back to the road. "We finally said our vows to each other on Santorini. A week later she was breathing through a tube in Geneva and I was desperately trying to steal the Methuselah stone. You know the rest."

Joe leaned back into his seat, his breaths more deeply pronounced in the sudden silence of the cab. Amy blinked a few more times. Adam had married Joe's cousin?  _Her_  cousin? Who had then died tragically?  _Adam_  had been the mysterious intruder who'd stolen the Methuselah stone from HQ while she was in the Academy?

"I have a cousin? Er,  _had_  a cousin?"

Joe looked back at her. "I never did tell you about Alexa, did I."

"What was she like?" Amy leaned forward on her elbows.

"She was very strong, and very determined, and very passionate about life," Adam said softly.

"She sure had your number from the get-go, buddy." Joe sighed. "I still don't know what you said to her to get her to go with you."

"I offered her the world," Adam whispered, "but she ended up being the one to show it to me. It was beautiful, seeing the world through her eyes, all fresh and new."

Amy gulped. "Oh my." That was ... incredibly romantic and remarkably disturbing all at once.

"She was ill, Amy. Nobody else would give her a job what with her frequent absences, and she had a lot of medical bills. I hired her on as a waitress at the bar in Seacouver." Joe sighed. "The doctors had given her six months to live when she met Adam here." He glanced sideways at the Immortal. "It wasn't exactly love at first sight, at least on her end."

"I've always admired a woman who could shatter my cynicism with a few carefully placed barbs, Joe," Adam sighed. "The world needs more people like Alexa and fewer like me."

Joe snorted and reached over to pat his friend's shoulder. "Adam,  _nobody's_  like you."

"Most likely that's a blessing." Adam took a deep breath. "Also, I don't want to cause a panic here, guys, but we're being followed."

Amy glanced back at the traffic behind them. "How long til the border?"

"A hundred kilometers, more or less. Make sure you're buckled in, I'm going to try to lose them at the next exit."

"Maybe the throughway wasn't such a good idea," Amy murmured as she slid fully into the seat behind Joe and belted herself in.

Adam shrugged. "It was the fastest road out of the country and until Lyon I didn't notice any tails. In some respects the throughways are safer than the country roads; more witnesses means we're less likely to be harassed, and there's more traffic to hide in. However..." He smoothly steered the Rover onto the exit ramp. "Maybe we can shake them."

"Which car is it?" Joe shifted towards his window and watched the cars behind them in his mirror.

"The blue Volvo, three cars back."

Joe kept his eyes trained on the mirror. "Two people in it?" Adam nodded. "Yeah, they're getting off too. I hope you know what you're doing."

"Trust me, Joe. I'm a paranoid old bastard, remember?"

~ - ~ - ~

Traffic was thin on the sleepy streets, making it very easy for the blue Volvo to keep track of them.

"This isn't working," Amy muttered nervously.

"Patience," Adam murmured as he pulled a left into a narrow, twisty drive nearly hidden by the dense foliage surrounding it. "We're almost there."

"I take it you've been here before," Joe said.

The Immortal nodded. "There's a nice little spot up ahead and no way to turn around for at least a mile after."

"Great," Amy grumbled.

Adam smirked and followed the natural curve of the road, just a little too sharply --

\-- and the Rover thumped and slid down a steep rocky bank, then splashed into a wide but shallow stream as Adam pulled sharply on the wheel and steered them underneath an old wooden bridge.

"Now we wait," he whispered as he turned the engine off. There was quiet in the car after that, broken only when Joe drew his gun and cocked it. A minute passed, then two, and then the clunk and rumble of a vehicle passing overhead. Amy held her breath. With a final thump, the vehicle overhead passed on by.

"That's that," Adam muttered as he started the Rover up again.

"Where to now?" Amy whispered, even though it was highly unlikely the occupants of the other car would notice now.

"I was thinking we could take the scenic route," Adam whispered back. "More options, fewer Volvos."

Joe still sat anxiously, his gun in hand, but after a moment he nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

~ - ~ - ~

The storm continued to worsen as night fell. Sheet lightning flickered across the sky and a strong wind began to blow from the north, sending leaves and rain and small branches skittering hither and fro. The headlights' range shrank slowly but inexorably, leaving Adam unprepared when they suddenly illuminated a wall of branches directly ahead of them. He cursed and slammed on the brake, bringing the Rover to a screeching halt mere feet before the downed tree.

"Well, hell," Joe sighed. "So much for the back route."

"Maybe I can move it." Adam unfastened his seat belt and slid quickly out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. Joe and Amy watched silently in the dim cab as he trudged towards the obstacle, the crescent of his pale neck shining brightly in the headlights even as his long coat soaked up the glare. A moment, two, as he surveyed the tree, and then he turned back, his eyes rising above the car even as his face froze in horror. Amy caught a glimpse of motion to their right, and then --

\-- a crash --

\-- pain --

\-- and everything went black.


	7. Hell On The Upholstery

Amy woke to a blurry sort of darkness, specifically a moving sort of large multi-blobbed blur in between two stationary sorts. She blinked a few times and the blurs coalesced into something a little like the interior of Adam's Jeep.

Then she remembered.

Adam looked up from his survey of Joe's injuries. "On a scale of one to ten, one being mild annoyance, seven screaming agony, and ten unconsciousness, how much pain are you in?"

"Huh?"

Adam repeated himself patiently.

"Um ... a four." Amy winced as she touched the aching stickiness on her arm and felt a sharp, stabbing pain. "Make that a five."

"Where are you injured?" Adam scooted onto the center console. "I've got to know if you need immediate attention or if you'll be all right for a few minutes."

She rubbed her head and looked down, though she couldn't see much in the darkness. "Uh, my stomach hurts, my right arm's torn up, and it feels like I've got a nasty bump on my head."

A few moments of awkwardness later, and Adam had managed to crawl into the back. He settled next to her on the bench seat and turned the torch on, then took her arm in hand and looked closely at the sluggishly bleeding gash down it. She could see sparkles from a bit of glass half-buried in her skin. Once satisfied, he let go of her arm and his hands danced over her head, poking and prodding as he asked where it hurt, as though it wasn't obvious that 'everywhere!' was the correct answer. At last it came to the last injury, the one she'd been dreading. "All right, show me your stomach."

She blushed a bit as she pulled her bloody shirt up to the bottom of her bra and held it there. He looked over her stomach and then switched the torch off. "Well, the good news is that nothing major was hit. It looks like the glass from the window didn't get through your subcutaneous adipose tissue." At her blank look he clarified. "Belly fat." She blushed further and became very interested in her knees. He gently tugged her shirt back down. "There's nothing wrong with a bit of belly fat, Amy. It protects the organs in situations like this." He patted her on the shoulder, then scooted to the other side of the seat.

"Joe looks like he'll be all right for at least the next few minutes, and we can't stay here for long. I'm going to go find us some shelter. I'd like you to stay still and keep from injuring yourself further. Try to keep Joe still if he wakes up too. I shouldn't be long." He got out and strode quickly off into the gloomy twilight, his coat pulled tight around his body. Amy watched until he disappeared, then leaned forward and pushed some of Joe's wet hair away from his forehead.

"We're going to be all right, dad. It's all going to be all right," she whispered, even though she wasn't sure herself.

It took Adam nearly ten minutes to return, and Amy was swimming in and out of consciousness when he opened the door and leaned inside to talk to her. "Well," he said briskly, "I've found a half-buried culvert. We ought to be able to hide out there for a little while, and it's mostly dry inside."

"Sounds fine to me," Amy murmured. She unbuckled her seatbelt and began to scoot towards the free side of the car, only to be stopped by Adam's upraised hand as he shook his head.

"Neither you nor Joe should be moving much right now. I'll take the baggage first, then come back and fetch Joe, and then you." He reached into his coat and drew forth a long-barreled pistol which he handed to her. "You know how to use one of these, right?" Amy nodded mutely. "Good. If anyone else shows up, shoot them."

Amy took the pistol gingerly. "How ... how many shots have I got?" she asked, her throat suddenly dry.

"Six." Adam sighed. "Also, if anything else happens and you need me right away, I'll be able to hear the gun go off, so use it. Otherwise, I'll be back in a few."

"All right," Amy said quietly. "I understand."

"Good girl." Adam shut the door again and moved to the rear of the Rover. Amy heard the click and whir of the back window rising, a few shuffles, and then the light thump as the hatch closed again. She looked down at her cell phone, pressed the button for the backlight, and then stared out at the rain which continued to splatter through her and Joe's broken windows. Was it really only seven in the evening? It seemed so much darker somehow.

Sure enough, Adam was back within only a few minutes. "That was fast," Amy said softly as he wrangled Joe carefully to the other side of the Rover. She could barely see his shadowy nod in the gloom.

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm all right," she replied. "Though I've been better."

"I'll be back soon." He hefted Joe up and shut the door. Amy heard his voice distantly berating Joe as he trudged off into the darkness again. "Joseph, Joseph, you have  _got_  to cut back on the double cheeseburgers..."

She was still smiling when he finally returned for her. "Ready?" She nodded into the darkness, and he flicked the torch on and shifted over to sit next to her again. "I want to get the worst of the glass out before I move you," he said softly.

"You're the doctor," she said with a touch of barely concealed hysteria.

He felt her forehead and then waited patiently for a few moments as she waited for him to do whatever he was talking about with the glass. "Can I see your stomach again, please?"

"Oh, yes, of course." She scrambled to pull her shirt up so that he could see the damage once more.

"Thanks." He pulled a rolled cloth out of his pocket and undid it. She stared at the startling assortment of lockpicks, needles, pliers, and stranger tools as he pulled out a long set of tweezers and began to pick at her stomach with them. After a few moments he looked up at her face. "Can I get you to hold the torch?"

"Certainly," Amy said as she took it from the seat where it sat squeezed between them. "Where do you want it?"

"I think there's a piece right here," and he pointed at the bloody mess with his tweezers. She obediently moved the light. "Good," he murmured, and then she inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut because it  _hurt_. "All done," he said at last. "It's bleeding a little but nothing too serious." She took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes again only to find him watching her with obvious concern, his tools already rolled up and put away and the gun she'd been clutching gone as well. "Do you feel up to moving?"

She nodded slowly.

"Right, then. Put your good arm around my neck." She complied and concentrated on breathing, her heart thumping unsteadily as he half-dragged, half-lifted her across the bench and to the door, where he paused and drew back a little. "On three I'm going to pick you up." She nodded in understanding and pulled him nearer as he began to count. "One ... two ... three." She buried her head in his shoulder and whimpered. Darkness swam around her.

~ - ~ - ~

Amy awoke to dirt, pain, and corrugated steel. There was about four feet of headroom in the culvert, she and Joe were propped up on an assortment of backpacks against one side, and Adam was pulling glass from her arm. She watched in a sort of stunned bemusement as he calmly and methodically stitched up the long gash on her arm. "You really have done this a lot," she murmured finally through the haze of pain.

He glanced up at her. "Yes, though it has been a while since I was in active practice as opposed to patching up friends." He bent his head again to his work. "I ought to go back to medical school. I've been reading up on the latest advances but it just isn't the same."

Amy hmmed in agreement. The world seemed to be slowly swirling or swimming around her: gauze and blood and oh... She looked over at Joe, who was still out, his breath shallow and labored. "Is he going to be all right?"

Adam sighed and stopped what he was doing, turning to look at Joe instead. "I don't know," he said at last. "He's been through worse, and recently too, but he lost a lot of blood and he is getting older." He sighed. "I could give him a crude transfusion, if worse came to worse, but it's not the best option at the moment." He patted her knee, his tone returning to confidence as he told her, "Don't worry, he ought to wake up soon, and then we'll know more."

She smiled weakly as he finished the stitches on her arm and gently pulled her shirt up a few inches to check the gashes on her stomach. "Should I be worried?"

"Probably not," and Adam  _smiled_  at her, the first of his brilliant smiles she'd seen since the accident. "I might not be up on the latest cancer treatments, but I am one hell of a field surgeon."

"You've had the time to be on a lot of fields, I suppose," Amy murmured, her vision swimming in and out. A metal flask was pressed into her hands and she looked down in amazement. "What?"

"A bit of whiskey," he said apologetically. "You looked like you could use a painkiller, and at the moment that's all I've got. And yes," he continued briskly, his movements quick and methodical as he wiped down and re-threaded a needle, his hands stitching her flesh together with short neat strokes, "I've put many, many people back together over the years." He paused for a moment before continuing, his voice softer. "There's always someone suffering."

She took a gulp of the whiskey. It was good. Strong. The pain seemed to recede just a bit, though the world kept spinning. "Doctor, Watcher... what else have you done?"

He sighed. "Well, I was a mass murderer for a while, but that didn't work out."

"Really." Amy stared at his face as he gently cleaned the gashes in her abdomen. He didn't look much like a murderer, but then she supposed they all were. Immortals. It sounded like a great gift and a terrible curse all wrapped in one, the Scotch egg of destiny. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't much look the type."

"Yeah, well, at the time no one seemed to know any better. The strong rule the weak, et cetera, ad nauseum." He shrugged. "I got over it."

"Fascinating." She stared up into the black, barely noticing the tears which rolled down her cheeks. "Why, Adam? Why are they doing this? Who's doing this?"

"I don't know," he told her, his voice laced with steel, "but I will find out."

"What about the first directive? Living another day?"

"That's still my top priority," he admitted calmly as he picked up a roll of gauze, "but the others have been reshuffled."

"Oh." There wasn't really anything more to say, so she said it again. "Oh."

"Yes," Adam said firmly. He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her slightly forward, then began to unroll the gauze and wrap it around her abdomen. "For instance, there's making sure you and Joe stay alive, because I have lost too damn many friends in the past three years and I don't intend to lose any more if I can help it. There's getting to the bottom of this mess and  _dealing_  with it," and she paled just a bit as that sank in, "because part of survival is minimizing threats." He tied off the gauze and then glanced into the distance, his eyes bleak. "The world is getting smaller every day, and there are only so many places to run to."

"You run a lot, then, do you," she said, not quite a question, not quite a statement, as she tugged her shirt back down over the bandage. Air didn't seem to want to stay in her lungs; she took a few deep gasps but stopped as his brow furrowed in concern.

"I run from most things," he said bluntly, "but giant conspiracies scare me."

"So you don't run when you're scared," Amy murmured. Her breaths came small and shallow, and her head would not stop spinning.

"Not always. Not any more." He shook his head. "Some fears are better off dealt with."

"Killed, you mean." She gasped in more air. "Oh, that's nice."

He gently felt her forehead and then her throat. "Sometimes." His hands lifted her wrist, felt the pulse as he timed it. "Some people just don't get the message."

"What sort of message?"

"Take another drink," he murmured.

She complied as best she could as he held the flask to her lips. Once he'd taken it away, she repeated herself, a bit firmer this time. "What sort of message did you give them?"

"Well, for instance, there was this one friend of mine during my, well, I suppose you'd call it my angry adolescence." His lips quirked. "I grew up. He didn't. He wouldn't let me leave quietly, so I ended up having to bury him alive just to get a head start."

"Sounds rough."

"Not nearly as rough as what came before that, I'm afraid," he said. "Anyway, he kept coming after me for a very long time, and I kept running away. It didn't stop him from chasing me. I'm surprised we didn't run into each other sooner, actually."

"So what happened?"

"MacLeod killed him for me."

Amy choked. "As a favor?"

"Not exactly." Adam shrugged as he finished packing his tools away. "They were acquainted, and not in a good way. MacLeod likely wanted to kill me too for a little while in there while he thought I was on Kr-- my old friend's side, but he figured things out by the end." She saw him stiffen, and then tilt his head to the side. "We've got company." He clicked off the torch.

"Oh no." Amy covered her mouth. "What now?"

"You're going to stay put." He gave her a grim smile, barely visible in the dim light from the mouth of the culvert. "I'm going to go take care of it." He knelt and put the gun and its holster on the ground next to her. "There's your contingency plan, should you need it. I'll be back as soon as I can." He straightened and slipped away into the shadows, the sound of his passing masked by the falling rain.

~ - ~ - ~

She had fallen half-asleep by the time he returned, though a few near claps of thunder had jarred her momentarily awake in the seeming eternity he was gone. At last she roused herself to find him shaking free of water like an unhappy dog. "I  _hate_  taking heads," he muttered as he flicked on the torch.

Dear God, the thunder. "There was an Immortal with them?" Amy steepled her fingers over her nose and rubbed the sides of her bridge in a vain attempt to adjust more quickly to the light that suddenly flooded the culvert. The alcohol he'd made her drink had dulled the pain to a dim haze, and although she still felt it her head seemed a bit clearer.

"Yeah." His teeth gleamed white in the light. "Young, dumb, and overconfident. Not much of a challenge." He tossed a set of keys in the air and caught them again as they fell. "On the plus side, we've got transportation now."

"Don't tell me," Amy groaned. "A blue Volvo."

"In one." He looked over at Joe with concern. "He hasn't woken up yet?"

"Not that I noticed," Amy admitted. "I sort of fell asleep while you were gone."

Adam took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he knelt beside the still-sleeping man. He put two fingers to Joe's neck and lowered his ear to his mouth. "Well," he said at last, rising, "it could be worse."

Amy decided it was worth bringing up, although her stomach filled with very nervous butterflies at the thought. "I didn't hear gunshots."

"Neither did they," Adam replied dryly. "They made the mistake of splitting up in a wooded area."

Amy swallowed. "Oh."

"We should get moving. There was a town fifteen or so kilometers back and we ought to be able to get a room for the night there. Once we're cleaned up and rested and both of you can manage to pass for healthy, we can cross the border legitimately." Adam began to lift Joe, then looked over at her. "Are you doing okay?"

"I'm hanging in there," Amy said. "Get Joe taken care of."

The Immortal nodded and lifted his unconscious friend with a grunt. "Back in a few," he murmured as he disappeared into the darkness.

~ - ~ - ~

"Do you feel up to trying to walk?" Adam pulled her eyelid up and shined the torch in. She batted his hand away and blinked several times as he turned off the light.

"I think I can manage," she said at last.

"Good. I'll be here just in case," he said as he offered her his hands. She grasped them and pulled herself to her feet with a gasp. "Shoulder?" he offered.

She took a few breaths to steady herself on her feet. "I'll take an arm, actually," she said.

He chuckled and offered her his elbow. "Certainly, Miss Thomas." She took it gingerly, but clutched tighter when vertigo attacked and the world suddenly spun round and round. She barely felt it as he gently detached her grip and scooped her into his arms again. By the time she could see straight they were at the blue Volvo and he was arranging her in the front passenger seat. "Joe's in the back, gun's in the console," he said softly. "I've got to get our things from the culvert, wipe down the Rover, and hide the bodies. It may take a while. Try to get some rest, if you can." She nodded and leaned back, and the world fell away into darkness.

~ - ~ - ~

She awoke to Adam shaking her shoulder. The rain had stopped, more or less, and she noticed that the Immortal was wearing a different shirt a bare moment before she noticed that their new vehicle was parked in a well-lit space right in front of a motel room. The door was cracked open and inside the lights were on, though the curtains remained drawn.

"Come on, Amy, I need your help getting Joe in. He's still sleeping," Adam said quietly.

"All right," she said as she gingerly stepped out of the car, but her footing was more sure and her head steadier than it had been when they'd left the culvert. He quickly wrapped her in his sodden coat, and she stared at him in puzzlement.

"Your shirt's still bloody," he whispered.

"Oh." Amy shook her head to try and clear it.

"I just need you to steady him on the other side," Adam said quietly. She shut her door and looked in the back seat. In the light he didn't look quite so bad, although his head had a definite black and blue lump developing. Adam must have changed his shirt too, she noticed blearily; Joe was barely bloody at all. Adam half-lifted, half-steadied him out of the car. Amy pushed her sodden hair behind her ear before ducking under Joe's arm and lifting just a bit. Her head spun and she stopped immediately and took a few deep breaths.

"You all right?" She couldn't see Adam's face but she could hear the concern in his voice.

"Let's just get inside," she said briskly, and began to slowly walk towards the door, half-dragging her father along with her. Adam's arm came around underneath hers and he grasped her shoulder in silent support.

"Hey now, take your time," he murmured as she got to the door first and pushed it open. Somehow between the two of them they managed to get Joe onto the bed nearest the door, though it took most of her remaining strength. She collapsed onto the other double bed with a sigh and stared up at the ceiling, willing it to stop moving around. Instead Adam's face appeared in her line of vision, and she winced at the concern in his eyes. "All our luggage is in and the door's locked. I'm going to go ahead and take a shower. Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "I'll be fine. Go on." She waited until he'd retreated and the water had started in the bathroom before hoisting herself to a sitting position. Sure enough, her duffel bag was nearby. She dug through and found her cotton sweats, then changed as quickly as she could manage and crawled under the sheets. She was fast asleep by the time the water stopped running.


	8. Facing The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this story ten years ago. I'm not going back and editing the old words. I just want to finish with new and then never have to look at it again. 👍

"How are you feeling?"

Amy awoke to darkness. She could hear Joe and Adam talking nearby, their voices low, and she smiled. It was all right, then. They were still there. Joe wasn't dead.

"Like a tree fell on me, smartass."

A dark shape stood and walked past Amy's bed. It was Adam, Amy realized as he flicked the light switch on in the bathroom, flooding the main room of the suite with soft light before ambling back to sit at Joe's side. She quickly shut her eyes, then ever so slightly opened them so she could see a bit of what was going on but still pretend to be asleep.

"Humor your doctor. Tell me when it hurts."

Joe yelped.

"Shhhh!"

"Sadist," Joe muttered.

Adam methodically ran his hands over Joe's head. Joe hissed as the immortal prodded at his skull. "I don't think anything's broken," Adam admitted at last, "but I'd feel more confident after some x-rays. There could be internal bleeding."

"Yeah, I'll just go ask the concierge for a CT scan on the down low," Joe snarked. " _ That'll _ go over well."

"I'll come up with something," Adam said. "In the meantime, keep talking. If you start getting more incoherent than usual, I'll know it's time to go rob a hospital."

"Thanks a lot!"

"All part of my diabolical plan to convince you to forgive my bar tab."

"Hah!" Joe barked out a laugh and then began coughing. With help he struggled upright, his back against the headboard. "You wish. That's my life insurance policy. I'm leaving your tab to Amy when I die."

"Oh, Joe." Adam's voice was soft and sad and terribly, terribly gentle.

"And I'm  _ not _ planning on passing it on any time soon, so quit moping."

"Well, anyway, we're in luck. There's a petrol station down the street, and a little market that's open late; I picked up some victuals while you were both sleeping. Do you want yogurt, sausage, or chocolate biscuits?"

Joe tilted his head back, considering. "Sausage. I could use the protein, I'm guessing."

Adam rummaged around in a pile of paper bags on the room's single table, then tossed a shrink-wrapped chunk of meat - a startling bright red - and a folded pocketknife to Joe. "And you, Amy?"

Amy winced and slowly opened her eyes. Joe gave her a tired smile. "Hi, honey."

She yawned. "You said there were biscuits?" Adam tossed the package to her and she quickly tore them open. "Thanks." He nodded in response, then leaned back against the table and cracked open a tin.

The food helped. Joe ate a quarter of the sausage, Amy wiped out the biscuits, and Adam finished off the strange tinned stuff. "What was that, anyway?" Amy asked. "It looked like cat food."

"Salad niçoise, tinned tuna salad. So yes, cat food."

"Oh," Amy muttered, and then curled back up on her bed – under the blanket, this time.

"Rome," Joe said suddenly.

Adam tilted his head. "I take it the question is, 'Where do we go next?'"

"Kathmandu is a long trek by land," Joe argued. "They think we're on the run. They won't expect us to show up at the next HQ over and take them out."

"I think I've given you an inaccurate impression of my skills, my friend," Adam said. "Sneaking up on a single Immortal and shooting a few low-budget lackeys is one thing. A full frontal attack on an international organization which keeps trained death squads on retainer is quite another."

"If you're worried about Embler –"

"Do you really think Embler would be involved in something like this?"

Joe sighed. "Nah. Not his style. He'd go by the book, and this,  _ this _ is setting the book on fire and then tossing it in the crapper."

"Someone's gotten ambitious, Joe. And given they had an Immortal working side-by-side with three Watchers from Special Operations, I'd guess the situation is worse than it looks."

"Damn." Joe shook his head. "Horton, Shapiro, now this mess – and Sanctuary's another disaster waiting to happen." Sanctuary? Amy filed that name away for later. "I'm not sure there'll still  _ be _ Watchers in twenty years, the way we're going." He sighed again. "I need to go to Rome, figure out what's going on and who's alive and sort this out. But I know  _ you _ don't do 'getting involved', old man. If you want to take off, that's fine by me. Take Amy with you, though, okay?"

Amy curled up tighter and pulled the blanket over her face. Like hell was she getting sent off like a piece of luggage.

"I'm already involved up to my neck, Joe. Splitting up at this point would be a mistake."

"You could be in Bora Bora right now."

"Right, while you make like MacLeod and saunter off to a messy, pointless martyrdom. No thanks."

"Adam –"

"Joe." Adam stared at him. "I'll concede investigating may not be a bad idea, and the next closest Watcher headquarters is in Rome, but your approach needs work. You can't just stroll in the front door and expect to accomplish anything beyond catching a couple kilos of bullets with your chest."

"Who said anything about strolling in?" Joe grinned suddenly and licked his fingers, then dug in the pocket of his pants for a few moments before retrieving a grimy, folded up index card. He waved it at Adam. "I figured I'd make a few calls first."

"From a payphone, I presume."

"Go teach a granny to suck eggs."

"Oh, the confidence of youth," Adam said; Joe barked out a laugh. "You should both try and get some sleep. I'll arrange some new transportation for us. There's a garage nearby."

"A garage that's open at two in the morning," Joe said skeptically.

"The sort of garage that only deals in stolen cars," Adam agreed with a bright smile.

"You know what, I don't want to know."

"Wise of you." Adam turned to look directly at Amy. "Paracetamol or ibuprofen?"

"Don't care," Amy mumbled.

Adam set a bottle of pills and an unopened water bottle on the bedside table, then grabbed his long coat on his way out. "Be good, kids," he called over his shoulder, and then the door snicked shut.

"Is he always such a mother hen?" Amy asked as she shook out three tablets of ibuprofen.

"Constantly," Joe said with a crooked smile, and then he turned out the light.

~ - ~

Amy drowsed off and on until Adam returned, the key scratching quietly in the lock before the door opened and shut again, sending a brief flash of orange-yellow light across the walls.

"What time is it?" she murmured softly, hoping not to wake Joe.

"Ten til five," Adam replied, soft footsteps coming closer. There was a clank of full bottles as he set something down and then she felt him settle on the end of her bed.

She struggled to sit up, her back resting against the headboard. "I thought you said we already had food."

"It's been a long night, so I picked up some beer." Adam lounged across the foot of her bed, much like he'd taken over the back seat when she'd driven to Lyon the previous morning. "I hope you realize it's not nice to eavesdrop on other people's private conversations."

"I just wanted to make sure he was going to be alright," Amy said defensively.

"He is." Adam glanced over at the lump in the other bed. "He was in a lot of pain, but I gave him two paracetamol when he woke up and he seemed less pinched round the edges when they kicked in."

"Nothing too serious, I hope," she murmured.

"Nothing deep," Adam agreed, "just a lot of shallow surface cuts. He hasn't gotten a lot of sleep lately and I think his body decided to take the opportunity to catch up. Inconvenient for us but less life-threatening than I'd expected, and thankfully the head trauma was light enough that neither of you had a concussion." He shuddered dramatically. "Definitely for the best."

"Is that your professional opinion?" Amy asked slyly.

He threw her a sharp look as he cracked open a bottle. "I haven't been a doctor for nearly a century. But as a  _ retired _ professional, yes, I don't think either of you are seriously injured."

"God, you're loud," Joe groaned from the other bed. "What are you drinking, and did you get enough to share?"

"None for you, you've got a head injury," Adam said. "You can have some once I can be sure any dizziness is unrelated."

"So next week," Joe said. Adam didn't disagree.

"You got us a car?" Amy broke in.

"'Car' is perhaps a bit of a stretch, it's a Citroën Visa." Adam shrugged. "But I'm assured it's in good condition, and the price was right."

"Don't be a snob," Joe muttered. "At least it isn't a bicycle."

"We could get you a sidecar, Joe! It's been a while since I cycled through the Alps, but I think my legs are still up to it."

Joe threw a pillow at him. "Pack it up, smartass."

" You should rest some more," Adam said.

"Nah, we should get back on the road. I'll be fine." Joe sat up and stretched.

Amy sighed and crawled out of bed. "Bagsy on the shower, then."

Adam produced a penlight from somewhere and sat down by Joe. "Lovely, that gives us time for an examination. Open your eyes, Joseph."

She shut the bathroom door just as Joe moaned, "Aww, not  _ again _ ."

**Author's Note:**

> I do want to finish this someday, and I have a fair chunk of the end written, but it's in the 'not now, not any time soon' bin. Please don't ask me when I'll update; if it happens, it happens.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Snap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523912) by [alesia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesia/pseuds/alesia)




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